NRG Energy announced it would acquire 18 natural gas-fired power plants with 13 GW of generation capacity as part of a $12-billion cash-and-stock deal withLS Power.
Houston, Texas-based NRG on May 12 said the deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, would double the group’s overall generation capacity portfolio to 25 GW. The gas-fired plants are located across nine states, including Texas and in the U.S. Northeast.
LS Power, headquartered in New York City, is an energy infrastructure investment firm. NRG CEO Larry Cohen said the deal is driven by the expected rise in demand for electricity from industrial customers, including data centers.
“We are in the early stages of a power demand supercycle,” said Cohen. The utility said the acquired assets also would include CPower, a commercial and industrial virtual power plant (VPP) platform. VPPs integrate multiple energy resources to provide additional power for the grid.
The companies said NRG will pay $6.4 billion of the deal in cash, and $2.8 billion in stocks, to LS Power. NRG also will assume $3.2 billion of net debt at the close of the deal.
“This acquisition transforms NRG’s generation fleet and broadens our customized product offerings, enhancing our ability to bring the future of energy to millions of customers across the U.S.,” said Cohen. “The transaction is financially compelling as it strengthens our credit profile and turbocharges NRG’s growth rate, while also supporting continued robust capital returns. We are in the early stages of a power demand supercycle, and we are excited to lead the way with reliable energy solutions that will drive considerable value for NRG and all of our stakeholders.”
“This transaction is a significant milestone for our firm and investors,” said Paul Segal, CEO of LS Power. “Over time, LS Power has carefully assembled, expanded, redeveloped, repositioned, and operated this generation portfolio, which is uniquely situated to meet the growing energy demand in the markets it serves. In the capable hands of the NRG team, these projects, along with CPower, will continue to provide critical services to the grid, enhancing both its resilience and affordability. As we have since our founding in 1990, LS Power will continue to invest in and develop secure and reliable energy infrastructure across the U.S.”
LS Power, which itself has been acquiring natural gas assets, said it would keep about 10 GW of power generation capacity across natural gas, renewables, and energy storage projects. The company also said it would keep its LS Power Grid (LSPG) platform. LSPG, which represents the company’s competitive transmission business, has more than 780 miles of high-voltage transmission lines in operation and another 350-plus miles currently under construction or development, representing a combined capital investment of more than $6 billion.
LS Power last summer reached an agreement with Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. to acquire its renewable energy business, which includes mostly wind and solar assets located throughout the U.S. and Canada. LS Power in announcing that deal in August 2024 said it includes 44 operating assets with more than 3,000 MW of generating capacity, along with an 8,000 MW pipeline of wind, solar, battery energy storage, and renewable natural gas projects.
Consumer discretionary stocks such as Best Buy, Amazon and Tesla are surging after trade deal between the U.S. and China
Shares of companies that sell retail goods were surging Monday, as the consumer discretionary sector as a whole was lifted by a preliminary agreement between the U.S. and China to set tariffs on Chinese goods at a 30% rate. The rally has put the sector neck and neck with the tech sector's premarket rally.
Best Buy Co. shares (BBY) are up 9.7% premarket, while Amazon.com Inc. shares (AMZN) are up 8.7% and Tesla Inc. shares (TSLA) are up 7.9%. Deckers Outdoor Corp.'s stock (DECK) is up 6.1%, while Nike Inc.'s (NKE) is up 6.8% and Lululemon Athletica Inc.'s (LULU) is up 6%.
The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund XLY, which counts the above names as holdings, is up 5.4% in premarket trading.
The consumer-discretionary sector is particularly sensitive to soft consumer demand and tariff-fueled macroeconomic uncertainty. The sweeping wave of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump on April 2, which he called "liberation day," rocked the markets, although last week's trade deal with the U.K. sparked optimism for more trade agreements and a thawing in the global trade war.
On Monday, the White House announced an agreement with China, which has been at the center of the tariff clash. The agreement reduces China's tariffs and eliminates retaliation, the White House said in a statement, as while retaining a U.S. baseline tariff on China. It also sets a path "for future discussions to open market access for American exports," the White House said.
Last week, J.P. Morgan cited Best Buy, along with Wayfair Inc. (W), as well as RH (RH), Mattel Inc. (MAT) and Academy Sports & Outdoors Inc. (ASO) as the names with the "highest upside potential" on China tariffs receding, followed by Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS) and Floor & Decor Holdings Inc. (FND).
Wayfair shares are up 15.1% and RH shares are up 16.6% in premarket trading on Monday. Mattel's stock is up 5.2% and ASO is up 8.8%. Dick's Sporting Goods shares are up 7.9% and Floor & Decor Holdings shares are up 6.9%.
"U.S. equities are charging higher on Monday morning as weekend trade negotiations between China and the U.S. have progressed significantly," Daniela Sabin Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com, wrote in a note released Monday. "After several positive comments over the weekend, a joint statement on Monday morning revealed that both sides had agreed on a 90 day pause and that tariffs would come down by over 100 percentage points to 10%."
In a note released Monday, Jefferies recommended buying shares of Five Below Inc. (FIVE), Nike, SharkNinja Inc. (SN) and Yeti Holdings Inc. (YETI) on the tariff de-escalation. "Despite varying tariff-related headwinds from China, these strong brands can mitigate impacts due to their scale," wrote Jefferies analyst Randal Konik. "As trade discussions progress during the 90-day pause, management teams could witness significantly fewer costs, as most businesses have opted to plan with the assumption of a 145% tariff in place."
Five Below shares are up 12% in premarket trading, while SharkNinja shares are up 8.4%. Yeti's stock is up 9.8%.
Tech stocks rallying Monday include artificial-intelligence heavyweight Nvidia Corp. (NVDA), which is up 4.3%; Intel Corp. (INTC), which is up 3.9%; Marvell Technology Inc. (MRVL), which is up 8.2%; and Apple Inc. (AAPL), which is up 6.3%. Shares of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. (META) are up 6.1%.
President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are expected to give a press conference about lowering drug prices via an executive order.
Ahead of the conference, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
DRUG PRICES TO BE CUT BY 59%, PLUS! Gasoline, Energy, Groceries, and all other costs, DOWN. NO INFLATION!!! LOVE, DJT
Live coverage provided courtesy of Right Side Broadcasting Network.
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Update (0755ET):
Pharmaceutical stocks slid globally Monday after President Trump said he would sign an executive order to slash U.S. prescription drug prices by 30% to 80%, aligning them more closely with international prices. The move, unveiled on Sunday on Truth Social, is seen by investors as a direct threat to profitability, raising concerns over pricing power and future earnings growth.
European drugmakers, including AstraZeneca, Roche Holding, and Novo Nordisk, missed out on the global equity rally sparked by trade optimism this morning. All three European pharma stocks were down between 3% and 4%. In Asia, the pharmaceuticals subgroup in Japan's Topix Index recorded its largest daily decline since August. In premarket trading in New York, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Merck were down between 2% and 3%.
Bank Vontobel analyst Stefan Schneider wrote in a note, "This has the potential to be very negative for the industry." He said the order will probably target Medicare, Medicaid, and hospitals.
Goldman analyst James Quigley and others provided clients with more color on Trump's incoming order this morning and what it means for European pharma stocks:
Last night on the social media platform Truth Social, President Trump confirmed that the administration intends to pursue the Most Favored Nation (MFN) Model for drug pricing, which calls for reducing U.S. drug prices to be more in line with international prices. Details of how this will be administered and specifically to which channels (i.e. Medicare Part B & D, Medicaid) will be disclosed in an Executive Order at 9am ET/2pm UK.
As a broad sensitivity analysis, for illustrative purposes if we assume a 10% reduction in U.S. Medicare Part B and Part D and Medicaid prices, this implies an average -2% impact on revenues across our EU Large cap coverage (assuming a 4-year phase in) and a -6% impact on our DCF valuations, all else equal. Exposure across Medicare Part B & Part D and Medicaid is fairly balanced across the industry, with Argenx, Astra, Novo and Novartis having the highest exposure (50% for ARGX and 45% of U.S. sales for the others) and Sanofi the lowest exposure (20% of U.S. sales) across these channels. On a channel specific basis, we estimate Argenx and Roche have the largest Medicare Part B exposure vs. Novo, Astra and Novartis with the highest Medicare Part D exposure. At the company level, our broad sensitivity analysis, all else equal and without assuming any costs savings offset, suggests GSK could be most exposed from a DCF standpoint followed by Roche/Argenx.
We note that EU Large Pharma has underperformed the wider market in Europe by -6%/-17% YTD and since the U.S. election on November 5, 2024, and now trades around 11.4x (11.4x ex-Novo) one year forward P/E, which is an 20% discount vs. the 10-year average multiple of 14.2x (13.5x ex-Novo, c.16% discount ex-Novo). Given this (and acknowledging other sector level concerns and FX), we believe the market is already pricing in some risk of U.S. price reform, but we would expect this to weigh on the multiple until the impact is fully digested in earnings estimates.
Quigley pointed out the EU pharma stocks with the highest exposure in the U.S. market.
Evan Seigerman, head of health-care research at BMO Capital Markets, told clients that Trump's plan likely only affects the drugs up for price negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act.
"Importantly, the government has no power to set prices in the commercial market," Seigerman noted, adding that any effort beyond the executive order could face pushback from House Republicans, limiting the scope of potential legislation.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that he will be signing the order at 0900 ET.
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President Donald Trump announced late on May 11 that he would sign an executive order which would reduce prescription drug prices in the US by 30% to 80% “almost immediately” while also raising drug prices “rise throughout the World in order to equalize and, for the first time in many years, bring FAIRNESS TO AMERICA!”
To achieve that, Trump would institute what he called a most-favored nation policy “whereby the United States will pay the same price as the Nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the World." Healthcare costs in the US “will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before,” he said.
Trump’s Truth Social post, which was preceded by an earlier one that promised as one of "most important and impactful" statements he has ever issued, didn’t detail how the order would work.
He also didn’t specify potential limits on the policy, such as whether it would apply only to government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid, if it would be limited to certain drugs or categories of drugs or if the White House sees a way to apply this more broadly.
Asian pharmaceutical companies fell in early Monday trading. Japanese drugmaker Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. dropped as much as 7.2%, the most in a month, with peers Daiichi Sankyo and Takeda Pharmaceuticals losing around 5%. In South Korea, SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Celltrion Inc. and Samsung Biologics Co. all fell over 3%.
Americans pay the most in the world for medicines, fueling innovation and driving the growth of the pharmaceutical industry. Drugmakers have said revamping the system will slash revenue and stifle the development of breakthrough therapies that have the potential to lengthen and improve lives.
Trump cited the industry’s argument, but said it meant that “the ‘suckers’ of America” ended up bearing those costs “for no reason whatsoever.”
As Bloomberg notes, the US government already negotiates prices for some of the highest-cost medicines used in Medicare health insurance under the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in 2022 under former President Joe Biden, with more slated to be added every year. The first two rounds of drug price negotiations haven’t included physician-administered drugs, but the next round might.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman suggested Trump might have been inspired by an idea he floated on X in March, when he said the best way to reduce US drug prices “is to make it illegal for drug companies to sell the same drugs abroad for lower prices than they sell them for here.”
In his first term, Trump proposed a Medicare pilot program for drugs with no low-cost generic competition that are given in doctor’s offices, saying he wanted to bring prices in line with countries like France and Japan where they cost dramatically less.
That plan, which would have phased in over three years, aimed to ensure Medicare paid the lowest price offered to a group of 22 nations.
The effort was struck down in federal court after drug companies challenged it, claiming the administration hadn’t properly carried out the rulemaking process. The Biden administration didn’t appeal that finding, and instead pursued legislation that led to the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Colorado state legislature is considering a bill that would radically chill parents’ speech. Dubbed the “Kelly Loving Act,” the bill, if signed into law, would empower judges to consider “deadnaming” and “misgendering” your child to be types of “coercive control” when they’re making custody decisions. In simple terms: if your child gender transitions and you don’t affirm their new gender identity, then a judge could consider your non-affirmation to be a form of abuse and use it as justification to deny you custody of your child.
This is a deeply chilling bill. The bill’s sponsors frame it as a way to show support for transgender people, but this bill goes way too far in stripping away parents’ rights.
Being a good and loving parent means telling your child “no.” Every parent has had these conversations.
“No, you can’t have M&Ms for dinner; eat your broccoli.”
“No, you can’t stay up until midnight. Your bedtime is ten.”
“No, you can’t hang out with Chad who’s always high; find some friends who will have a better influence on you.”
But when it comes to gender transitioning, saying “no” could be dangerous. If your son decides to socially transition and begins calling himself a girl, and you don’t unconditionally affirm that decision, then you could risk losing him if you’re ever in a child custody battle.
Some advocates of gender transitioning say that socially transitioning is harmless. After all, what does it matter if your son starts to use female pronouns and wear dresses? The problem is that socially transitioning puts many children on a conveyor belt to medically transitioning. According to a 2022 study on the topic, a stunning 97.5 percent of young people who socially transitioned continued to identify as either trans or nonbinary several years later. Nearly 60 percent went on to medically transition via either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.
Proponents of gender-affirming care for young people suggest that these numbers are proof that young people know their gender identity and simply need it to be affirmed; when it is affirmed, they do not waver. But this idea falls apart when we consider that the mean child in the study socially transitioned when they were just six years old. It is possible that some of these children truly are transgender. Much more likely is that, when a slew of authority figures validate a young child’s sense of identity, these authority figures reify that sense of identity. This is true even if the identity in question is not something that the child would ever have chosen had they not been prodded into it by well-meaning authority figures.
The fragile and unsteady formation of a child’s sense of identity has long been studied by psychologists. If authority figures tell a child that he or she is worthless or defective, then many children will believe that even if it is not true. If authority figures tell a child that they are stupid, or bad at sports, or shouldn’t play piano, and if the authority figures hammer this message home for years from a young age, many children will grow to believe this about themselves.
Indeed, this helps explain the rapid rise of transgender-identifying youth. As professor of psychology Jean Twenge notes, the number of young people who identify as transgender has exploded in recent years.
Some of this explosion might have to do with the fact that people who identify as transgender feel safer coming out of the closet than they might have in previous decades. But the size of the surge suggests that a lot of this is socially mediated; that is, young people are being pressured by peers or by authority figures (including by the promise of unconditional acceptance) into adopting an identity that isn’t really theirs.
“the fact that gender dysphoria now often appears in social clusters (such as a group of close friends), the fact that parents and those who transition back to their natal sex identify social media as a major source of information and encouragement, and the fact that gender dysphoria is now being diagnosed among many adolescents who showed no signs of it as children all indicate that social influence and sociogenic transmission may be at work as well.”
For many young children who are being encouraged to socially transition, the best and most loving act that a parent can take may indeed be to push back on this false sense of identity rather than reify it. There are times when parents really do know best.
When it comes to free speech, a good rule of thumb is this: the more weighty a matter is, the more essential that we be allowed to discuss it freely. The higher the stakes to vulnerable lives if we make the wrong decision, the more essential it is that everyone should have the freedom to share their perspective.
The reason is simple: free speech is a powerful vehicle for discovering the truth of a matter, because it allows everyone involved to bring their perspective and their knowledge to bear on the question. When we don’t allow all parties to speak freely, we increase the risk of making bad decisions because the blind spots and cognitive biases of the people who are allowed to speak do not get confronted. As John Milton wrote in “Areopagitica,” “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”
This bill threatens to chill speech on one of the most important questions that a parent will ever have to wrestle with. If a six-year-old boy wants to socially transition, then it is essential that his parents be free to discuss the matter frankly and honestly. They should bring up their concerns. Only when both parents are free to discuss these matters openly and honestly can they help the child to navigate this decision in a way that is most likely to be in the child’s long-term best interest.
If the Colorado bill were to become law, it would put a stop to those conversations. If a mother believes that affirming her six-year-old son’s decision to socially transition isn’t in his best interest, is she going to speak up about her concerns knowing that it could potentially cost her custody of her child? More likely, she’ll be tempted to keep her concerns and opinions to herself, in order to not take the risk. But that state-enforced silence won’t help her son.
It’s easy to see the noble intentions motivating the authors of the “Kelly Loving Act.” As one of the bill’s sponsors said, “This is a bill that will ... send a message to trans people in Colorado that we believe in them, care for them, and love them, and we want them to live healthy, safe lives.” We should certainly all be respectful of adults who choose to transition their sex or gender, and to love and care for them as God’s cherished children.
It’s also essential that we care for young people struggling to find their identity in a tumultuous world. But we should remember that most parents know their children and love their children far better than a judge ever could. Perhaps the most caring thing we can do for young children right now is to empower parents to raise them as the parents see fit, without unnecessary and intrusive political oversight from state agents.
The ceasefire between India and Pakistan which ended nearly a week of intense border fighting which included heavy cross-border shelling, aerial engagements, and drone warfare is holding into Monday. Washington, New Delhi, and Islamabad are celebrating.
Signs of normalcy and life are fast returning to both sites of the restive Line of Control (LOC) in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir regions, where the fighting took place. India's aviation authority announced Monday that 32 airports in hard-impacted northern regions of the country have reopened.
Airports across Srinagar, Chandigarh, and Amritsar had been ordered closed, all commercial flights halted, since May 9th and the launch of India's 'Operation Sindoor' - meant as retaliation for last month's Pahalgam terror attack which left 26 mostly Indian tourists dead.
Both India and Pakistan had at one point imposed blanket suspensions of civilian aviation across broad swathes of their countries, and various international carriers had paused service to the warring countries, during what was the worst fighting in decades.
The ceasefire went into effect after Trump's major Saturday morning announcement, which was around 5pm in India and Pakistan that "After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE." He lauded the leaders of both countries for "using common sense and great intelligence."
Still there were reports of some violations, but nothing major in terms of sustained shelling has come out of it:
Hours after the ceasefire was announced on Saturday, India accused Pakistan of violating it by shelling border regions. Residents across major towns in Kashmir were on their toes, once again, after drones reappeared in the skies.
One of the worst-affected places in Kashmir during these days is Uri, a picturesque town of pear orchards and walnut groves close to India’s contested border with Pakistan.
There are various regional reports saying that in many of these hardest-hit villages and towns along the border, people are actually returning to their homes, in a sign of optimism that the peace will hold. Some market headlines also point to optimism:
INDIA'S NIFTY 50 INDEX JUMPS 3% AFTER CEASEFIRE WITH PAKISTAN
PAKISTAN'S KSE-30 SURGES 9.2% ON INDIA TRUCE, IMF LOAN PAYOUT
TRUMP: LEADERSHIP OF INDIA, PAKISTAN UNWAIVERING TRUMP PRAISES FULL, IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE BETWEEN INDIA, PAKISTAN
Reuters: Indian stocks log best day in 4 years on border truce; Pakistan shares surge
Monday trading saw the Nifty50 close above 24,000; and BSE Sensex rallied 3,000 points to cross 82,400. Overall this constituted a sharp rally of nearly 4% in India’s benchmark indices.
To be expected, both sides are claiming a 'win' - however, India reportedly lost up to five jets in hostile encounters. Both sides have thanked Trump for his peace mediation efforts, meanwhile.
"We thank President Trump for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region," said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Days prior to the ceasefire, Vice President J.D. Vance had explained to Fox News that Washington would not get involved militarily, but would use its diplomatic might: "What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it," he said.
Everyone is happy except for mainstream media, it seems...
In this conflict at least, Trump has fulfilled a campaign promise to essentially be a 'peace' president who negotiations the end to wars, and avoids starting them. This is certainly a diplomatic win as be departs for a Middle East tour (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE).
Meanwhile, Trump addresses India-Pakistan peace on Monday...
Trump on India-Pakistan conflict:
I said come on, we are going to do a lot of trade with you guys, let's stop it. Let's stop it. If you stop it we are doing trade, if you don't we are not going to do any trade. pic.twitter.com/VsJ4AlVDHq
Loans taken out by smaller companies weakened at a faster rate between 2023 and 2024 than those by bigger companies, yet overall credit quality remains stronger than before the pandemic, according to Moody’s Ratings.
The share of small middle-market companies with weak liquidity climbed about ten percentage points to over 30% during the period, Moody’s said in a report on Monday. By contrast, for those with more than $50 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, the share with weak liquidity rose only slightly to less than 20%, the ratings firm said.
